


Human Nature

by skippingreelsofrhyme



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:22:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skippingreelsofrhyme/pseuds/skippingreelsofrhyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People don’t just scream in the middle of the street. People don’t just erupt with tears in the middle of business. People don’t just drop what they’re doing and express themselves.</p>
<p>This, at least, was something Adrien Agreste had figured out for himself about the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Nature

                When someone wants to scream and shout, there’s nothing for it. They might want to jump and whoop and holler and carry on and such, but they won’t. They may have the urge to drop what they were doing and roar and howl like a wild beast. They might feel like their soul is about to come exploding out of their body in a fiery burst of light and sound. They may find their mode of expression narrowed only to the vast and dramatic. They might even wish they could simply make a simple, small sound. Anything. Well, they could wish and hope and want to do all these things, but nothing would come of it. Nothing would happen. People don’t just scream in the middle of the street. People don’t just erupt with tears in the middle of business. People don’t just drop what they’re doing and express themselves.

                This, at least, was something Adrien Agreste had figured out for himself about the world.

                The funeral of his mother was a strange affair: old plump ladies he’d never seen before wore enormous feathered hats, veils obscuring his only hope of identifying them; block-shaped men gathered in bunches, shoulder to shoulder, looking for all the world like a city from a distance; his father, in more of a charcoal than a black, blond hair turning steel as his glasses, the cut of which always hit the eyes like a knife. His mother’s face hit the eyes like clean water; like a warm breeze; like a goodnight kiss. And now that face was being lowered under the earth.

                He wanted for all the world to hold her hand one last time. He reached out for the dark coffin, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder; a firm grip sinking down through his skin and grasping his bones. With the final thud of wood hitting dirt, Adrien felt the cold creep up his outstretched fingers, through his arm, directly to his heart. In this moment, he understood implicitly that human nature is cruelty. With this coldness in him, where he would bear it evermore, he recoiled his hand, and the hand on his shoulder fell from him.

                That evening, he found himself alone, as he would be, for a long, long time. In the night, he held his cold fingers out the window, and felt the last pieces of his mother’s presence drift away. And, for all the suffering he’d felt on this day, Adrien knew that he would cherish this night for the rest of his life. It was the last night he would ever feel his mother, and he would never let the memory go. He pulled his hand back, the skin now chapped, and closed the window to the blustery night.

                Human nature is cruelty. His mother always fought so hard against her nature, but was defeated eventually. It is human to die; her death was cruel. Human nature is cruelty.

                His father was human. Cruelty came naturally. He incessantly hounded Adrien for every little mistake—nothing went unnoticed—including Adrien’s presence. Though he was often _left_ alone, he was never _let_ alone. Each moment of his waking life belonged to his father, who would capitalize on it. As a child, he was allowed no childhood. His father could never grasp the difference between a son and a servant; his steel frames didn’t clear his vision as they ought to have.

                And so Adrien lived his life, not solitary, but in solitude. And, in solitude, fell lower and lower. His heart felt frozen, and all attempts he made to thaw it were cut off by the knife that was his father. He’d been warned of suffering. His mother had warned him that one day it would come to him, and when it did, that he’d be strong. His father had warned him that one day it would come to him, but whatever happens, people get their pay. His mother had said that he would go far, and that he’d shine bright as the sun. His father had said that he would go far, but only under a watchful eye. Before things changed, he only sunk deeper and deeper, and he often felt the call of his own human nature.

                But then things did, and suddenly he had an outlet. He had a voice. He could scream and howl and explode in all the ways he never could before. He came to life, not as the sun, but as the night; a shadow to a superhero. Once he had this—this wonderful thing—he knew he could resist human nature. He could resist the cruelty in the call of death; resist human nature. To bound over rooftops like he’d painted the Parisian scene himself, and built the very city up from sticks.

                He couldn’t resist the call of the night; the same night that had sent the cold up his arm into his heart now cradled him, like his mother’s hand around his at last. He didn’t need to make his own heat, only to follow the girl that led him out of the cold and far from his misery. The girl who spat fire and kind words. He could never turn back. He only needed to be near this girl who needed to be near him. And this girl needed him to have his voice, and to use it to howl with her, and to use it to defeat human nature.

                And this very voice gave him the power to tell his father off; to cast full blame on him; to accuse him of human nature; to finally scream and cry the way he always wanted. He wouldn’t accept any answer from the human before him; he never needed to be human again, if only he could be held in the eye of the superhuman girl who, finally, let him scream.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is kind of a songfic- please listen to blackberry stone by laura marling, if you want to get the vibe this was going for.


End file.
